Static Main Menu

District Police Organisation and Role of Superintendent of Police

Article shared by :

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The police administration is built around police districts. Each police range comprises of four or more police districts, which coincide with the boundaries of the revenue districts. Organizationally, the district is further subdivided into police circles and police stations. The police circles are placed under the control of circle inspectors while the police stations are administratively managed by the Sis of police, which are known by several names in vernacular in different states.

Some police stations also have their police outposts or chowkis within their territorial jurisdiction, which are usually under the charge of head constables or assistant Sis of police depending on the importance of the place where an outpost is located.

For organisational purposes, a police station is the smallest field unit of police administration. Several states have abolished police inspectors in the wake of administrative reorganisation. The SP who heads the district police office, also coordinates the functions of the heads of the district police lines, district crime bureau, district special branch, district traffic branch and the district prose­cution branch.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The volume of work which depends upon the size and special demographic characteristics of the district, generally determines the size of police network and the functions of the SP. As a police chief, he has to work in close liaison and collaboration with his administrative seniors at the range and state headquarters. The organisational chart given on the next page depicts the chain of command as it obtains in the police organisation of a typical district.

District Headquarters and the Office of the SP:

The district police organisation constitutes the hub of the Indian police system. On an average, an Indian district covers about 3,600 sq. miles and a population of over a million and a quarter people. In addition to providing administrative services, the district headquarters have a large jail and store-houses for clothing equipment, arms and ammunition.

Constables for the district are recruited and partly trained here. Armed police and sometimes, mounted police also have their reserve lines or barracks there. The CID organisation operates from its headquarters. Adequate discretion has been vested in the police authorities at this level and this facilitates a happy mediation between general directives and adjustment to specific circumstances.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The district police organisation is represented by its chief, the SP. He is always a member the IPS and wields a great amount of power and prestige in the district. Working under the overall supervision of the DM, he looks after the problems of law and order and that of the administration of crime and vice in the district.

As the chief intelligence officer of the district, he collects infor­mation from the lower levels and communicates his assessment of the same to his superiors of the district police personnel system and looks after the service conditions of the junior police employees working under his charge.

He is directly responsible for their efficiency, morale and discipline as policemen. In districts which territorially include big cities, the SPs have additional and special responsibilities such as regulation and control of traffic, collection of special intelligence and handling of political and communal conflicts of violent nature.

The district or the state police organisation controls the network of police stations spread all over the country. The superintendent of police, who presides over this organisation, is the key functionary through whom the state government operates and the police stations below look to him for command, guidance and action. Hierarchically speaking, the district police in most of the states stand organised into police subdivisions and police circles, which comprise a cluster of police stations.

The additional or deputy superintendents of police look after the work of police subdivi­sions, while the circle inspectors deal with the supervisory work of police stations falling within their respective circles. A number of staff agencies such as crime bureau, special branch and special investigating agency, etc., stand converged into the office of the district SP, who, in turn, operates through a network of line units, such as police stations, special squads, prosecuting branch, traffic police and reserve police.

The SP is empowered to take all sorts of preventive measures, if a breach of peace is appre­hended in the district. To avoid untoward situations, he may advice the collector to issue prohibitory orders and even to clamp curfew, if the situation so warrants. In the event of actual breach of peace, he is expected to make adequate police arrangements to cope with the situation.

Crowd-control during fairs and religious festivals are his special concerns. If agitations are launched by political parties or other militant groups, the SP is required to take special precautions consistent with the susceptibilities of special groups. Holi, Diwali, Bakra-Id, VIP visits, election campaigns and political meetings, etc., are some of the special occasions when mass congregations threaten to violate public order and as such their management constitutes special responsibilities of the SP.

Deliberate violation of laws is a crime and even where it does not disturb public peace or security in an immediate sense, it has to be detected and plugged in time in the larger public interests. The SP of a district has special responsibility in this regard.

He controls the incidence of crime in his district through:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

(a) Effective patrol by his fleet;

(b) Investigation of grave crimes and making and receiving special reports about these cases; and

(c) Administrative supervision over his subordinates who keep constant vigilance, take preventive measures, and maintain up-to-date records of criminals in the district.

The function entails a number of subsidiary duties. The SP has to call for reports, supervise in person and visit the scenes of crime soon after their occurrence. This is a major traditional function and the victims involved in these crimes after go to the SP as aggrieved parties in appeal.

The SP also supervises the operations of crime and special branches of his CID. He sends periodic information to the DIG (Intelligence) at regular intervals. He also acts as a line agency on behalf of the state organisation of the CID, which, in turn, may ask him to undertake certain special kinds of intelligence operations on the request of Union agencies like CBI or CIB or SPE. The civil, the political and the senior police officials of the government have to be kept constantly informed about the incriminating activities of the saboteurs of peace and enemies of the state.

The functions of the SP further include various kinds of organisational and personnel responsi­bilities at the district level. He has to maintain an adequate supply of vehicles, arms, communications, equipment’s and other accessories like uniforms, etc., in a good shape. He inspects police stations within the jurisdictional limits of his district and provides for necessary physical conditions to keep his men working in a satisfactory state of morale and motivation.

As a captain of his team, the SP has a critical say in the policies pertaining to recruitment, promotion, training programmes and disciplinary matters. He evaluates the performance of his administrative subordi­nates and takes disciplinary actions as and where needed. To effect discipline in the force he attends parades, gives personal interviews and recommends cases for promotion, punishment and transfers to his seniors.

He organizes sports, tournaments, annual get-together and special meets to keep his district force in high spirits. He undertakes police welfare projects and provides incentives to his juniors for better performance. As head of the office, he is personally responsible for the correctness of cash and store accounts of his department.

He maintains financial propriety by observing rules and is expected to effect measures conducive to internal economy for the organisation. He super­vises the office work of his civilian officials, who handle the inflows and outflows of all kinds of communications, horizontally as well as vertically.

Democracy in the country has developed a new responsibility upon the SP and that is to evolve and maintain friendly and cordial police-public relations in the district. The aggrieved people are given special audiences and the co-operation of the political leaders of the area is sought. He has to act as a reconciliatory link between his junior police officers and the aggrieved parties, which hurl all sorts of accusations against the former. Some SPs maintain special research cells or police-public relations units in their organisations to keep their fingers on the pulse of the people.

Thus, the functions and duties of a SP in a district are fairly wide, varied and far-reaching. They make him a central person in the district administration. Sitting in the office of the district police chief, the SP deals with his juniors, seniors, non-colleagues, people, political parties and an endless variety of political and quasi-political pressure groups.

His main functions are certainly preser­vation of peace and prevention of crime but the ancillary roles that grow around these major functions like collection of intelligence, traffic control, inculcation of healthy public relations, make him a really powerful district officer who occupies a pivotal position in district adminis­tration.

The Office of the Sub-Inspector of Police:

The office of the sub-inspector of police is one of the living anomalies of the Indian administration. Originating in the Daroga system of mediaeval India, the office of the sub-inspector represents a queer and ingenious grafting of the law and order machinery on the district-based and district-biased revenue administration of the country, evolved by the colonial rulers of India.

It was the office around which Sir Charles Napier reorganized his Sindh Constabulary under the district police superintendents in 1853. The later Torture Commission, (1855) and the Police Act, (1861) concen­trated their reform zeal primarily on the office of the superintendent and the sub-inspector continued to be a petty functionary with enormous powers and Herculean responsibilities.

The Police Commission of 1902 also lamented a great deal about the organisational contradictions and personnel policy loose-ends at all the levels below the superintendent of police but very little concrete or reformatory action could emerge in the background of the history of the national movement. This one potent factor has kept the Indian police insulated and relatively stagnant for almost the entire 20th century.

It has contributed a great deal to the omnipotence and omnipresence of the sub-inspector in the realm of the law and order administration. Being the lowest responsible functionary on the spot, he has been handling the sociology of crime and the politics of mass violence and quasi non-violence with a lot of discretion in the absence of a communication revolution.

Although independence has radically altered the politics, the economics and the sociology of the country yet the fact remains that, notwithstanding a few ritualistic exhortations in the periodic reports of the State Police Commissions, nothing basic or serious has been attempted or even conceived of to rationalise his position, powers, duties and relationships in the emerging pattern of administration in the states and at the Centre.

Mass education, adult suffrage, parlia­mentary system of government, Panchayati Raj, urban patterns of living, liberation of women, labour unionism, communal tensions and increasing youth violence have all added to his predicate meats, but still very much like a Casablanca instinctively trained to obey his seniors, he stands on the burning docks of social upheaval with literally very little mental and professional equipment to combat with.

His recruitment and training have rendered him into a pathetic picture of apparent muscle, mentally insecure and psychologically timid and starving. He is efficient but he does not care what the social and economic costs involved are. Having nothing but crude and blatant power to exhibit and constantly surrounded by all sorts of criminals, delinquents, neurotics and abnormal, he finds his mental equipment and intellect-cultivation too fragile to stand to the strain.

No wonder the psychic needs of his personality tend to make him arrogant and even a slavish flatterer to his seniors. Worse still are the varieties, which become escapists and take an apathetic view of things with mysterious dispositions.

The recruitment and training of sub-inspectors and the constabulary are not only out of tune in themselves but are not relevantly and gainfully linked with the purpose of the organisation and the new philosophy of the profession. Only skills are being imparted and in the absence of norms and attitude they are working the other way round.

The neglect of the problems of performance evaluation, incentivisation and follow up programmes do not redound to the credit of the training institutions. The trainers of the equitation and musketry age not only need retraining but bring the problems of gerontocracy or generation gap into play.

This breeds professional casteism and generates low morale among those who are yet to launch upon their lifetime careers. Obviously, an ill-equipped recruit militarily trained and brain-washed into the professional skills and physical discipline of the profession by his hierarchical seniors can hardly grow into a dynamic police officer whom the changing police scene in India so sadly needs and so badly demands.

The Police Station:

‘A police station’, by definition, “is a place or post generally or specially declared as such by the state government and includes local area specified by the state government on this behalf”. It is a primary administrative unit of police investigation which receives and registers information and complaints about cognisable offences.

The jurisdiction of a police station is often changed or recognized by the state government on the recommendations of the DGP, DIG range and the district collector. The average area of a police station in India is about 200 sq miles, covering about one hundred villages or so and with a population of approximately 1,00,000 persons.

However, the jurisdiction of a police station in northern states tends to be larger than what it is in the southern states. The density of population also makes a difference, so much so that while in West Bengal an average police station stretches to 122.4 sq miles of territory inhabiting 106,000 people, in the State of Rajasthan the corresponding figures about a 3 police station are 27 sq miles of territory and 4,210 people only. Normally the personnel of a police station consists of one SI, one head constable and fifteen constables.

Functionally speaking, the police stations in Indian states are generally of five types:

(1) The Rural Police Station

(2) The Town Police Station

(3) The Sub-urban Police Station

(4) The Metropolitan Police Station

(5) The Railway Police Station

A police station under law is a unit of police activity in terms of total lice functions. Its three-tier hierarchy is headed by a SI, who along with a team of ASIs, head constables and constables looks after police jobs in the area. He is also called as SHO or the officer-in-charge of police station. He has numerous duties and immense responsibilities in the field of police administration.

In fact, he is a multipurpose man and the police laws require demanding services from him. His duties and functions are prescribed and enumerated in the police acts and other statutes but additionally he has a number of other informal and discretionary jobs to perform besides his assigned duties.

Some of his major duties as a station house officer can be enumerated as follows:

(1) Pertaining to law and order

(2) Duties pertaining to prevention and control of crime and vice

(3) Duties pertaining to detection of crime

(4) Duties pertaining to intelligence

(5) Duties pertaining to legal matters

(6) Duties pertaining to traffic, public assemblies and processions

(7) Duties pertaining to tours and beat in the areas

(8) Duties pertaining to police prosecution

(9) Duties pertaining to police station management

The SHO enjoys a fairly large discretion in operating various administrative procedures which the police law entails and the civil law warrants. He maintain a host of legal books, report registers and manuals as required under the procedural laws.

Some of these important records in a typical police station are:

(1) FIR Book

(2) Case Diaries

(3) Charge sheets

(4) Final reports

(5) Bail bonds

(6) Search lists

(7) Seizure lists

(8) Register of non-FIR cases

(9) Register of unnatural death cases

(10) Inquest reports, especially of the murder cases

All these basic documents contain fairly detailed information about the ‘crime profiles’ of the area and have to be filled in daily as well as periodically in addition to the above, the SHO is especially charged with the responsibility of maintenance of several other kinds of useful police records which among others, include:

(1) A General Diary

(2) A Crime Register

(3) A Conviction Register

(4) History Sheets and Surveillance Register

(5) Village Information Sheet

(6) The Crime Map

(7) The Bad Character Rolls

(8) The Crime Index

(9) Statistics

(10) Property Register

(11) Summon and Warrant Registers

(12) Absconders Register

In addition to the above, there are other registers which are to be maintained in connection with the administration of Arms Act of 1959.

These registers are:

(1) Arms License Register and

(2) Arms Deposit Register.

Then, there are other administrative records and legal documents such as:

(1) Buildings Register

(2) Government Property Register

(3) Cash-Book

(4) Accounts Duty Roster

(5) Correspondence Registers

(6) Village Rosters

(7) Jurisdictional Lists

The titles of the police station records are self-explanatory and indicate what all these registers contain. Through these registers the police station keeps an up-to-date record of information about public order, grave crimes, useful intelligence and measures taken by the administration in the past and the present. They also indicate the future course of police action. The SI of police signs all these documents in person and he and his juniors are personally responsible for the safe custody of signif­icant records.

The Constabulary:

Constables are the lowest link in the organisational hierarchy of police administration of a district. As they belong to civil police, they are not armed except on special occasions. When on duty, they wear prescribed uniforms. They are recruited straightaway from the masses and mostly belong to rural sections of society. The educational qualifications and equipment of the constables are very low.

They generally do odd jobs of manual nature and merely execute such orders which entail little discretion and decision-making. In India, the largest number of police personnel belongs to the rank of constables. His duties and functions, though very significant, are not recognized as basic to police administration by the government and society. Actually, the post of a police constable in India is analogous to that of a chaparasi or a class IV servant.

Some of the routine functions of a police constable are:

(1) To perform such guard and escort duties as are assigned to him by his seniors from time to time. (He acts as a sentry at the police station and guards prisoners in the lock-up, the treasure chests, the malkhana and all the property of the police station.)

(2) To patrol the area of his beat during night and to regulate traffic during day, depending upon the nature and volume of work at his police station.

(3) To regulate processions and assemblies, to suppress public disturbances, to enforce orders for search and seizures and to execute summons and warrants as routine duties. (These duties assume importance during emergencies.)

(4) To serve as orderlies and peons in police stations and police offices. They are often employed to do non-police jobs of routine and manual nature inside police stations and in the offices.

(5) To accompany and assist senior police officials in investigational work with regard to crime and on occasions such as those of post-mortem examination, police funerals and hospital operations of the convicts, under trial and police custody.

These functions place police constables at the back and call of the seniors who lay down programmes of action for them. The quasi-military nature of the police organisation does not allow the constable to have advisory or staff functions. Whether they guard public property or serve water to their seniors in the office or even act in the midst of a tumultuous crowd, they always execute laws or rules in a mechanical fashion and never forget to take orders from their seniors before they are really up and doing.

They are petty officials and their duties and functions, howsoever decisive for the efficiency and image of the cops, are deliberately devoid of responsi­bility, discretion and individual judgement. They represent and symbolise the law and are even called ‘the limbs of law’. Yet, they are neither participants nor decision-makers in the adminis­tration of law and order of the country.

The System of Rural Policing:

The Indian Police Commission 1902 recommended a system of village police which continued for the rest of the period of British regime in India. The village police in a district has two distinct parts, namely, the village watchman and die village voluntary organisations.

The commissions appointed by different state governments in India have strongly condemned the structure and working of village watchmen. However, the Indian Police Commission of 1902 found it relevant and useful in a particular given context of history and rural sociology.

The principle of village responsibility for policing which the commission advanced and advocated would yield the following characteristics of the chowkidari system:

(1) The village, recognised as a unit for revenue and general administration should have a police watchman for the village.

(2) The village police officer, i.e., the SHO, should not be the master or superior of the headman.

(3) The village headman should be a multi-purpose person and must concentrate on one village only.

(4) The district police may control his failures of duty in a limited manner and for all practical purposes he should be answerable to the civilian head of the district or to his subordinates.

(5) The post of the village headman should be stipendiary and may be, as far as possible, hereditary and he should only be a part-time government servant.

Thus, the police organisation at the district level has a wide and complex mixed duties pertaining to the registration and investigation of crimes, patrolling, surveillance, services of processes, collection of intelligence, arrest of criminals, searches and seizures of property and other detective and preventive measures are undertaken by the police stations located in the field.

The big city police stations are called ‘kotwalis’ and are generally put under the charge of inspectors. Normally, a sub-inspector heads the administration of an urban as well as rural police station. He is assigned a varying number of sub-inspectors, assistant sub-inspectors, head constables and constables to do the job of policing.

The actual number of these functionaries depends upon the size of the police station and the nature of work or crime a police station has to handle. The character and organisation of urban and rural police stations are almost identical and they follow similar procedures of police work in all the states of the Union.

As a repository of information about the area, the police stations maintain daily diaries, cases diaries, FIR registers, crime registers, cashbooks, malkhana registers and history sheet records. Together they present the profile of crime and criminals, which obviously differ from state to state, area to area and station to station.

Panchayati Raj, as a developmental mechanism has unleashed all kind of new variables and tensions in the politico-economic system of rural India. It has thrown up new leadership and new threats of public disorder and crimes which the old police-machine finds increasingly difficult to cope with. Thirdly, the pace of social change and gradual modernisation of traditional ways of living are not only eroding the structure of social values but have also introduced quasi rural patterns of community living in medium-class towns.

The mixed situation, marking transition from rural to pen-urban community living, devolves special responsibilities upon the guardians of law and order who find the police organisation in the district too ill-equipped and stagnant to deal with pressures of change.

The changing context presents a bewildering picture of the district police organisation in which an SP is too high and too far away from the actual scene of police operations and an SI is too inadequately qualified and ill-trained to handle growing complex situations of changing India.

The illiterate policeman at the lowest rung of the organisational ladder is fast becoming an anachronism even for the rural police and if the democratic system continues to move with speed, the organi­sation and officials of the police station will be too frail and too inadequate to live up to their minimal duties.

In sum, it can be stated that the structure and mechanism of district police adminis­tration has been too static to face the dynamism of change. The lower rungs of the hierarchy are neither recruited from amongst the qualified strata nor are they empowered to do jobs according to the changing needs of the community.

There is overcentralisation in organisation and working and the entire organisation is saddled with multitudinous and multipurpose functions. The old struc­tures have yielded little room for specialisation and stratification and still less, for innovation and reform. The organisational functioning of the police has been adversely affected by compulsions of political awakening and new socio-cultural ethos of the post-independence era.

The need for decen­tralisation and autonomous flat structures at state and district level police administration is increasingly being realised and a thorough overhaul and radical re-organisation of the police machine, at all levels of hierarchy, especially at the district is more than overdue.